DAVID WATTERS AND COLLEAGUES. An open letter to the Australian Parliament regarding the health of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island

(The following letter appeared in the MJA Insight on 27 November 2017)

WE are senior Australian clinicians who write in our individual capacity to express our concerns about the ongoing health and well-being of the former detainees still based on Manus Island and now in alternative accommodation. They, like all human beings, have a universal right – enshrined in the United Nations charter – to health and well-being. Their political and citizenship status should not affect this right. All politicians regardless of their political party should respect the human right to health and themselves be strong advocates of “health for all” without discrimination.

We are deeply concerned about the ongoing refugees’ physical and mental health;

There are reports of poor hygiene and sanitation, limited supply of electricity and inadequate living conditions. All of these exacerbate disease and ill-health;

We are not aware of accurate information on the health status of the refugees since the “official” closure of the Manus Island Australian-governed facility;

We are concerned about the harm and the adverse publicity to the international reputation of Australia, its government and its people.

Urgent action is required:

We believe that there should be an immediate, independent review of the health status of those still on Manus;

We are prepared both to participate in this and to nominate appropriate, independent and credible clinicians;

We are of the opinion that such a review should ideally be made in conjunction with senior Papua New Guinean clinicians who would take the responsibility for informing their government.

We are willing to conduct this review pro-bono, arranging the appropriate mix of clinical specialties. We would require the Australian government to negotiate the diplomatic permissions and officially sanction travel to and within PNG, as well as agree to clinical assessment of willing individuals.

We believe that the humanitarian issues take precedence over politics. This is a matter beyond immigration and border control, but one that affects the health of people and others’ perceptions of our great nation.

Yours sincerely and with great concern at the current situation,

Professor David A Watters OBE ChM FRCSEd FRACSAlfred Deakin Professor of Surgery, Deakin UniversityPast President Royal Australasian College of Surgeons

One Response to DAVID WATTERS AND COLLEAGUES. An open letter to the Australian Parliament regarding the health of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island

No petition, no pleading, no compelling argument will impact on those who sit in the Parliament of Australia. Cruelty is part of the DNA of all of us. The way to inflict cruelty on others in the human race is to first demonise them. It is then possible to convince the rest of the (our) tribe that the others are less than human. Once the leaders convince the the tribe of this, the infliction of pain and suffering on others becomes desensitized.
In modern Australia, Howard commenced all this with the Tampa and “children overboard”. That delivered him victory. No one since has had the courage or the conviction to call our treatment of refugees for what it is. If they had the moral courage to do so, every politician in our parliament would vote NO to every bill before our parliament until this deplorable situation was rectified. But no one has the guts and so as the Germans looked sideways as Jews were trucked to the gas chambers, so we too all look sideways and console ourselves that Howard and all who followed him were correct, these people are less than human.